Last night was another night where I couldn’t fall back asleep. This time, 2:30am rolled around, and I was tossing and turning. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I know I can fall back asleep. Other nights, I wake up and I know its time to brew the coffee. So I woke up, and ever since yesterday its been on my mind to open my laptop and write. So before I allowed myself to open my book, I crawled back into bed, coffee in hand, laptop opened on my lap.
I’ve been writing an outline I suppose you could say, and I’m not allowing myself to get caught up in the details right now. Editing can come later. But I knew which part needed to come out now and I wrote freely. I think reading an extreme amount has been helping to get my juices flowing, accompanied by the fact that I’ve stayed off social media apps for a week now completely. I wrote two pages and when I went back to reread them I laughed at myself. Afterwards, I got to thinking about people that have this need inside them. My son is the same way with drawing. He draws the most beautifully intricate characters, the costuming like nothing you’ve ever seen before, and when I ask him how long it’s taken him, he’ll shrug and say “Oh, about 16 hours.” Sometimes, especially during the summer, he’s been known to stay up until 3am. In the zone, just him and his drawings. Sometimes even without music. I’ve always admired that about him, he’s been a true artist since he was little. I knew he had this special gift and I wanted to nurture it.
Now I’m not claiming to be gifted, please don’t take this as an ego trip, but what I’m saying is I’m starting to immerse myself in my artistic outlet. What is interesting about that is strange things happen when you do this. You wake up at 2am needing to put something on paper. You park your car in the garage and furiously type into your notes app before you can unbuckle your seat belt and walk in the door. It is a force that flows to you, a knock on your door waiting to be answered. Once it starts to form it cannot be ignored.
I used to watch my son experience this all the time in awe. I had never seen someone truly have this gift and be able to nourish it and I wanted to help him keep it as long as possible. Forever if it were up to me. I used to crave creativity, need it almost, but I could never quite pinpoint what it was I could do creatively that felt just right. I knew very well what I couldn’t do and I suppose I chose to focus more on that instead. Until I didn’t. And now that I’ve found what fuels my creativity it all makes sense. How my son can stay in his room for hours working on a project, although, I will fully admit I am not quite there. I dip my toes in, little by little. I get in the flow, and then get out of it. Maybe I’m still in awe of myself, that I’m capable of creating something. For so long I was focused on everyone else, I didn’t realize what I was capable of. Maybe I will continue to surprise myself. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some sleep in the process.
The Girl Without A Face 